115864-dev-cycle-change-is-actually-not-a-huge-content-loss
Content ---- ---- ---- I don't remember seeing confirmation of the original 5&6 being combined to form the 4th drop. Link source please. | |} ---- I think you're counting your Gribbons before they're hatched. So far by my count we're had no drops for two months, and no seasonal content for the rest of the year, and... Oh. Wait. That's the end of the list of the content that we've got since they announced that they couldn't live up to the monthly drop schedule that they were using to justify the monthly sub business model. And to whet our appetites while we wait for the next drop--which itself has no release date that they're willing to commit to--we've been given patch notes that have a big asterisk on them that reads "NOT ACTUALLY PATCH NOTES", and a lot of breezy assurances about how the amount of content in quarterly drops will be more than the amount of content that they had previously planned for to happen in individual monthly drops. So from where I stand, what we have now is a bunch of IOUs and a big backlog of content to be made up. If it is, then I will agree with you that the value of a sub hasn't been degraded to the point of irrelevance. Until it is, I believe your assessment of how A-OK things are is premature. This is not my first ride on a MMORPG post-launch promise-a-thon, and the trajectory of this ride doesn't look much different from many of the other ones I've been on. I'm long past being impressed by big promises. But I am very impressed by kept promises. | |} ---- ---- it was said that they could not keep up with that schedule as much as they wanted to. would you rather them stick to the monthly schedule and every update is mediocre and adds more and more bugs to the game that go unfixed? | |} ---- ---- can always join PTR. weekly and in some cases even daily updates with free bugs included. It's not any different from the live version if they keep their promised bi weekly updates. So that gives every player the opportunity to play the way they want. Quarterly released bug free content as not advertised from the beginning or daily/weekly/bi weekly/monthly updates as advertised from the beginning. The choice is yours. | |} ---- duped? you act like carbine planned this to get your money? they failed, they admited it, the gave us the plan to fix it. and its a plan were you see about 33% less content then before and a whole heck of a lot less bugs. on top of that you get a more polished game | |} ---- ---- My thought is your a hopeless dreamer All the content was up on PTR before they took it down and it was only about equal to drop 1. Technologist should have had a complete tree before launch the majority of systems and QoL changes like runes and AP and skill updates are not the sort of thing they should be holding back on and while yes there are a lot of good bug fixes, like 90% of them are nearly irrelevant minor inconvenience during a quest while leveling things. We are losing 2 major holiday events as well and things that were announced as "patch 4" such as tank and healer update aren't in it, we're basically going off nothing but their word that it's 2 drops worth of content. The patch will hopefully go smoothly and I have no doubt it will be good but it won't even be a tenth of what it's being hyped up to be Also the timing is turning into "compete with new WoW expansion" which is like... MMO suicide, even if it was the greatest patch that ever happened in the history of patches Wildstar is going to lose subs that month | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- This actually is somewhat problematic. If they were really planning to have Megaservers all along, why make seperate RP servers in the first place? And why not tell us instead of keeping us in the dark while charging money for server transfers? And if they weren't planning it all along then their statement is just an outright lie. I don't know which is better... This wouldn't have been a problem if Wildstar was a b2p game. Carbine themselves said that they did monthly content to give value to the sub, now that the monthly content schedule is gone, the sub has lost its value. Now if the quarterly Drops were just as big as 3 drops combined this would be fine (I personally don't prefer it, but alright), but we all know that this isn't the case. It's probably just as big as 1,5 of the formerly planned monthly Drops. What this means is that either Carbine should find another way to add value to the sub, or they should reduce/remove the subscription fee. | |} ---- ---- Your maths is a little off. Drop 3&4 would have been for September and October so almost on track releasing in November. However, 5 & 6 should have then been released in November and December but it is unlikely we will get them until February meaning we will have missed drops 7&8. This only gets worse over time. I do not have much issue with quarterly drops but trying to pretend they deliver the same amount of content is just not true. | |} ---- ---- ---- All due respect Kytar, this game had holiday content promised. They showed holiday content at their promotional events. They told us it was coming. And then they CANCELED it. Even the developers aren't trying to defend the position that we lost nothing when that content was canceled. It blows my mind that your response to that is "you can't lose what you never had." Honestly, do you guys just not understand the concept that when the beehive is already buzzing with anger about overhyped expectations, walking up to it with a stick labeled "Expectations weren't overhyped and are still what they were" and whacking it repeatedly is a really really bad idea? Do you think that if people show up here and spin things with enough falsehoods that sound nice, it'll be so reassuring that we'll all forget the reality of where we are? The developers are trying to apologize for overblown promises of the past and bring expectations down to reality. To the OP of this thread and the OPs of too many other recent threads to name, please stop defending a vision that even the developers are no longer trying to defend, so that the rest of us can stop pointing out the truth of how much smaller their current, more realistic, direction is. Overhyping the vision and ignoring the problems is how we ended up with a bunch of failed expectations and bitter disappointments. Could you stop doing everything in your power to force things into another round of failed expectations and bitter disappointments? Please? I'm sorry to be one of the ones to still be telling the devs hard truths that I know they don't want to hear. I'm sorry to diverge from the white-knight view on these forums that just the announcement that the Megaserver launch was coming in a few days was a perfect time to launch a multipronged "SEE? EVERYTHING'S PERFECT NAOW!" cheer. Things are not all better. Things will be better once the developers get past their current state of "content constipation" and start actually adding new things to the game again--and things will be considerably better if the things that they add actually address the reasons that people have been stampeding for the exits. But those things have not happened yet. Right now, where we are is that things have been modestly improved by the developers coming out and admitting that they made a bunch of promises they couldn't live up to, apologizing for it, and trying to downgrade expectations. That's honest, and I appreciate the candor. Now if only the white knights here would get on board and try to defend the development team's actual new position, so that the rest of us could move past pointing out that no, actually, it is NOT really the same thing that the original position was. | |} ---- ---- You have to keep in mind any companies PR people will almost exclusively talk in half-truths and spin, and they will prep non-pr people's statements to be the same way. take their megaserver comment for example. After like 2 months of people shouting for server mergers they announced it and said it was something planned from the start Well they already have an RP server that has a developed RP community that is going to be shattered by this meaning they either A) lied about always intending megaservers to hide some other intent or B) made an RP community with the intent of destroying it later on But the way it went down is for the first two months just about every patch they did introduced nearly as many bugs as it did fixes and reverted a lot of previous fixes. But from their comments this problem seems to be mostly stemmed from the process they used, none of their testing servers were an actual mirror of live so it was like every patch was just a blind let's see what happens while also including lot's of old code that was fixed through weekly patches overwriting it back to what it was like pre-fix. Not so much a not enough time deal as much as a doing it poorly problem for the most part drop 1 was pretty decent but drop 2 the only new content added was a battleground that most people actively hate and messed up pvp stats so much that it basically destroyed the pvp community then drop 3(the original one) had like pretty much everything any dungeon runner/raider could have hoped for in it. In it's original state it was like "omg so awesome can't wait" then about a week before it was supposed to drop they said we're delaying it and including a months worth of feedback and bug fixes and another month went by and still nothing then they announce megaservers and say it will get released when it's ready and then another month went by and they again said it will be released when it's ready and added "it's like 2 drops worth of content" and now we're in the waiting for another month to go by phase It's kind of a every month that goes by, their story changes to fit it. Like nowadays they have been saying the drop is reliant on some tech changes that will come with megaservers when that was never a reason before. Also maybe worth note, that with their last thursday of the month release schedule. September 25 would have been the date for a quarterly schedule. what we are dealing with now is kind of a meandering whenever it happens schedule being called quarterly | |} ---- I didnt say the same, i simple suggested it wasnt as bad as 1/3 the content. Im well aware we have lost abotu 1/3 of the content, but given all the other issues being fixed, it could have been worse. | |} ---- The problem is why should we keep subbing every month if content only comes every 3 months. People will go through new content within the first month or two, and have nothing left for the third month. If we got new content every month, people would stay subbed for every month. It's all about releasing smaller patches more often than large patches less often. Also, bug fixes, item optimization, rune system changes, and class balance doesn't really count as new content. They're all just QoL improvements. | |} ---- ---- From a business perspective, having content every month will maintain subs much better, you are correct in that there will be lulls in which people unsub as a result of the quarterly change. This is why i applaud Carbine, becuase its taking a hit to its wallet to make a better game for the fans. Also ultimatley it signals that the quality of the content would have been so bad, being released monthly that it was better to move to a quarterly schedule despite the financial difficulties it would cause. We win at the end of the day, and its just a shame that monthly was not feesable. | |} ---- The reason the monthly drops were full of bugs in the first place is because Carbine was trying to build 10 houses at the same time instead of building one house at a time. They had a bunch of stuff all lined up for the next year, and spread their QA thin. What they should've done was just focus on the immediate drops instead of content coming out in 6 months. There's no reason we can't have quality content in the form of small updates every month instead of quality content in the form of large updates every 3 months. For example, instead of releasing both Blighthaven and Northern Wastes at the same time, they could've focused QA on one, and then released the other the following month. Instead they spread their QA too thin and released a buggy mess. Or instead of releasing every class balance change every 3 months, release 2 class' balance changes every month. Stuff like this. | |} ---- But they where focusing. The devs have already said that they only had content a few months out in the works. The "6 months down the line content" was planned, but had not yet been started. Its why christmas was cancelled, they have not even started it. Like it or noT, the game needs alot of fixing atm, this takes QA time, add that to Drop QA time, add to that a months timeframe, and you have too much QA to do, in too little time. Like i said, Carbine wouldnt opt for 3 month cycles, unless is was required. | |} ----